Ossining's old-school cobbler celebrates 50 years

Tony's Repair Shop owners Antonio and Maria Mastracchio, who are celebrating 50 years of business in Ossining, share their story on July 11, 2018.
Tania Savayan, tsavayan@lohud.com

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Owner Antonio Mastracchio, 80, repairs shoes at Tony's Repair Shop in Ossining July 11, 2018. Mastracchio, who learned the craft in Italy, and his wife, Maria, are celebrating 50 years of business in Ossining.(Photo: Tania Savayan/The Journal News)Buy Photo

OSSINING - Fixing shoes for decades has given Antonio Mastracchio a life in America with his wife. It's allowed them to put their two children through college.

"I said, ‘You choose the school, I’ll work hard and I'll pay for a lot of it,’" said Mastracchio, whose Tony’s Shoe Repair celebrates 50 years in business this month.

Mastracchio, 80, repairs about 200 shoes a week in his shop on Route 9. His wife, Maria, has worked by his side from the beginning, greeting customers, handing out yellow claim tickets and retrieving repaired footwear from stacks of brown-paper-bag wrapped shoes and boots.

One thing that's changed over the years: Customers are more likely to present sneakers and hiking shoes for Mastracchio to refurbish than finer footwear.

He's resoled shoes for Westchester Broadway Dinner Theatre's costume department, for nuns and priests at Maryknoll missionaries up the hill in Ossining, andfor hundreds of commuters whose shoes take a daily beating on Manhattan sidewalks.

"It's his life," his wife says. “He does everything. He does jackets, leather jackets; he does pocketbooks, belts — anything to do with leather."

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Tony's Repair Shop owners Antonio and Maria Mastracchio, who are celebrating 50 years of business in Ossining, at the shop July 11, 2018. (Photo: Tania Savayan/The Journal News)

As classical music fills the workshop, Mastracchio pivots between his vintage green-and-silver shoe-repair machines to fix beloved items customers worry no one else has the know-how to salvage. His white work apron drapes to below his knees, the front painted with smears from so many rescue efforts.

“I love them and I’m afraid they’re going to retire on me,” says Elaine Honzak of Briarcliff Manor, a real estate agent with Houlihan Lawrence who’s been coming to Tony’s for 40 years.

Honzak said that over the years, he’s repaired high-end shoes, including the Italian brand Prada, “to keep them going for 10, 15 years. He can refurbish them and make them like new. He's just amazing."

The origins of Tony’s Shoe Repair are in Italy, in the town of Sassinoro near Naples. Antonio and Maria grew up there and attended the same school. They married in 1958. It was, she says, a small place where everybody knew everybody.

Four generations of Mastracchio men had been shoemakers, and Antonio became the fifth. Now, he's the last.

"I worked hard, but my father worked harder," he said, recalling there was little money in it for his dad. "So that's why I don't feel bad if I've got to work many hours. It's OK."

As a boy, his first job was to straighten nails used in shoes. Eventually he learned to make shoes himself.

"Everything had to be stitched by hand," he said

But in post-war Italy, earning a living was difficult. One of Mastracchio's brothers left for the U.S. to work in the shoe business, at 72nd Street and Lexington Avenue in Manhattan. Antonio Mastracchio immigrated in 1960 and worked there too. He and Maria lived in the Bronx.

Mastracchio eventually wanted his own business. Maria had relatives in Ossining, where plentiful jobs for laborers on the Croton Dam and the railroad drew Italian and Irish immigrants to the community. Her grandfather worked at a local nursery, where “he was in charge of roses,” Maria said.

So Antonio and Maria moved to Ossining and, in 1968, Tony’s Shoe Repair opened, at first on Pleasantville Road. Mastracchio also made shoes — something he did into the 1970s before switching to repairs-onlyas the market for handcrafted footwear dwindled.

Work days sometimes stretched to 11 or 11:30 p.m. And the business climate was competitive, with a few shoe-repair shops like Tony's in Ossining.

“Every day, it was more and more,” Mastracchio said of the work. “The shoes were good and I had no problem pleasing (customers)."

Mastracchio has earned a reputation as someone who can fix just about anything. He dates that distinction to the 1960s, when a customer told him that another shoe-repair shop said a sole couldn't be repaired.

"And I said, 'That's nothing; I can do it for you,'" Mastracchio recalled.

In March 1969, Tony's Shoe Repair moved to rented space in the Chilmark Shopping Center in Briarcliff Manor, and in 1982, the Mastracchios purchased their current storefront on Route 9, which enjoyed Hudson River views until 2014, when the Avalon apartment complex was built across the street.

Other shoe-repair shops disappeared over time, leaving cobbler expertise in fewer hands.

"It's a lost art," says Maria Mastracchio.

Children who once came with their parents are now customers, some of whom are bringing a new generation to the shop.

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Shoe shapers at Tony's Repair Shop in Ossining July 11, 2018. Antonio Mastracchio, 80, who learned the craft in Italy, and his wife, Maria, 77, are celebrating 50 years of business in Ossining. Tania Savayan/The Journal News

Owner Antonio Mastracchio, 80, repairs shoes at Tony's Repair Shop in Ossining July 11, 2018. Mastracchio, who learned the craft in Italy, and his wife, Maria, are celebrating 50 years of business in Ossining. Tania Savayan/The Journal News

Owner Antonio Mastracchio, 80, repairs shoes at Tony's Repair Shop in Ossining July 11, 2018. Mastracchio, who learned the craft in Italy, and his wife, Maria, are celebrating 50 years of business in Ossining. Tania Savayan/The Journal News

Customer Joan Engel of Scarborough chats with Antonio and Maria Mastracchio at Tony's Repair Shop in Ossining July 11, 2018. Antonio Mastracchio, 80, and his wife, Maria, 77, are celebrating 50 years of business in Ossining. Tania Savayan/The Journal News

Tools of an old-school shoe repairman at Tony's Repair Shop in Ossining July 11, 2018. Antonio Mastracchio, 80, who learned the craft in Italy, and his wife, Maria, 77, are celebrating 50 years of business in Ossining. Tania Savayan/The Journal News

Owner Antonio Mastracchio, 80, repairs shoes at Tony's Repair Shop in Ossining July 11, 2018. Mastracchio, who learned the craft in Italy, and his wife, Maria, are celebrating 50 years of business in Ossining. Tania Savayan/The Journal News

Shoe shapers at Tony's Repair Shop in Ossining July 11, 2018. Antonio Mastracchio, 80, who learned the craft in Italy, and his wife, Maria, 77, are celebrating 50 years of business in Ossining. Tania Savayan/The Journal News

Owner Antonio Mastracchio, 80, repairs shoes at Tony's Repair Shop in Ossining July 11, 2018. Mastracchio, who learned the craft in Italy, and his wife, Maria, are celebrating 50 years of business in Ossining. Tania Savayan/The Journal News

Bags of repaired shoes waiting to be picked-up at Tony's Repair Shop in Ossining July 11, 2018. Antonio Mastracchio, 80, who learned the craft in Italy, and his wife, Maria, 77, are celebrating 50 years of business in Ossining. Tania Savayan/The Journal News

Owner Antonio Mastracchio, 80, repairs shoes at Tony's Repair Shop in Ossining July 11, 2018. Mastracchio, who learned the craft in Italy, and his wife, Maria, are celebrating 50 years of business in Ossining. Tania Savayan/The Journal News

Owner Antonio Mastracchio, 80, repairs shoes at Tony's Repair Shop in Ossining July 11, 2018. Mastracchio, who learned the craft in Italy, and his wife, Maria, are celebrating 50 years of business in Ossining. Tania Savayan/The Journal News